10. Wendy
CHAPTER TEN
WENDY
Because it was Roc who tore a hole through the side of James’s ship, it’s Roc who secures us a new vessel. We hire a charter ship with a larger crew and even finer accommodations. The chief stewardess, a woman twice my size with a long, black braid and bright red fingernails, shows me to my room below deck while we wait for Winnie and Vane.
She introduces herself as Maggie and compliments me on my trousers.
“I borrowed them, actually,” I tell her. “I used to spend my days in complicated gowns, and it was…”
We pause at an intersection in the narrow hallways. She looks over at me, her dark brown eyes trained on me as if she’s actually listening. What an odd feeling it is to feel like someone is interested in my answer for the answer’s sake and not because they were pretending to be interested for court favor.
“It was what?” she coaxes.
“Insufferable,” I admit.
“Ahh. Well, trousers suit you. I can tell you feel like yourself in them.”
I glance down at the leather hugging my thighs. While they’re Asha’s pants, and very much the pants of a would-be assassin, of which I am not, I think Maggie might be right. I do feel more like myself.
“I appreciate your honesty and your kindness.”
“Always a pleasure.” She winks and continues down the hall. “Here we go.” She opens the third door on the right with a small metal key.
“We call this the Lily Room. You can probably tell by the theme.”
The room is large by ship standards with a queen bed draped in a thick duvet, on which are small, embroidered lilies. The curtains are a gauzy white that I imagine must billow with sea breeze when the window hatch is open.
There’s a chair in the corner upholstered in rich indigo velvet. And beside it is a door leading to a small adjoining bathroom.
“If you need anything,” Maggie says, “ask me or my second, Quin. Quin wears a red jacket signifying their position on the ship. They are the only person with that jacket so they are hard to miss.”
“Okay. Got it.”
“Anything above deck, ask the deckhand, Mr. Kepler. He looks like an old, crotchety fisherman, but he’s nice enough.” She smiles. “But take my advice, do not mention the Storm of Howel to him. He has about seven different tales about the storm, and you will never escape him.”
I laugh. “Noted.”
“Beyond that, we’ll stay out of your way. This is your ship while on board.”
With a nod, she hands me the key to my room and takes her leave.
I turn a tight circle, taking in the rest of the room. A few hooks are on the wall beside a small writing desk and an end table on one side of the bed with a clock and a lamp.
It’s cozy and inviting. How Roc managed to pay for this, I will never know.
Slipping the key into my pants pocket, I leave the room and run right into Roc. The ship’s halls are narrow even by my standards, and his shoulders nearly touch either side.
“Your Majesty,” he says down to me.
“Stop.”
“Only when I want.” He smiles at me, eyes glinting as if he’s suggesting something else entirely.
“You seem better.”
“Vane’s blood. It stabilizes me.”
“Is that a long-term solution?”
“Not in the slightest.”
“Oh. Well…”
Why am I so awkward around him?
He makes me nervous. He makes me want to run off the gangplank and sink into the dark water of the ocean and scream into the void.
Desiring Roc is not easy. And yet, it’s the most primal thing I’ve ever felt. My attraction to him is like a seed planted long ago, fully in bloom now. A wild, sprawling thing with roots down deep.
“Well, I’m glad you’re feeling better.” I turn and start away.
“Where are you going?” he calls after me.
“To the upper deck.”
“You’re going the wrong way.”
I come to a stop at the end of the hall and find a golden placard attached to the wall reading DINING with an arrow turning right.
I turn back.
Roc is leaning against the wall, his legs crossed at the ankle, arms crossed over his chest like a trickster god from a dark fairytale.
My heart kicks up.
He points in the opposite direction. “This way.”
I switch directions, breezing past him, but he snatches me by the arm, pulling me to a stop.
In a blink, he has me pressed against the opposite wall, the line of his body against mine.
Our difference in height has the tattoo on his neck, the open mouth of a crocodile, right at my line of sight.
My swallow is loud between us, my heart thumping in my ears.
Since he and James arrived on Everland, we’ve only been together that once. But it hasn’t stopped me from replaying it over and over in my head while heat burns between my legs and desire rises up my belly. I desire them both in different ways, for different reasons, but I wasn’t sure if there would be more.
Roc and I were never alike. He was always sharp glass to my tender flesh. I’m not sure if we’ll ever fit together in a way that isn’t bloody and confusing. And while his relationship with James can sometimes be just as troublesome, they seem to have an understanding between them. A closeness I may never cross. I am jealous of them. I can see the time they’ve had without me, all the minutes and days adding up to a sum I can never hope to match.
I hadn’t intended to have a serious conversation with him about anything. Not right now. Not while his monster wars with him. But the words spill out unbidden.
“I’ve been meaning to tell you…that if you love James more…if you would rather be with him than me then I will under?—”
His hands take control of my body—one half wrapped around my throat, the other pressing at my opposite hip—and then he bends down and kisses me.
It is not a chaste kiss, but neither is it sensual. The way his mouth teases at mine, it’s like another trick, like at any moment he could slip away.
Eyes closed, I lean into him, hungry for more of him, any amount he will give even if it breaks me.
His tongue meets me, a soft caress. Then he nips at my bottom lip and growls into my mouth.
“Shall I show you, Wendy Darling?”
“Is this what you came down here for?”
“I had no plan. No intentions.” His fingers trail down my cheek. His touch makes my insides quake.
“I don’t want your pity attention,” I tell him, but the words come out wanting. Threaded with desire.
“Let me show you how I feel about you, Wendy Darling.” His hand sinks to my thigh, then trails back up, slowly, achingly slowly, to the seam where my thigh meets my center.
I breathe out in a hiss.
“Just you and me,” he goes on, his fingers brushing against my pussy, then gone just as quickly. “If we’re to do this, the three of us, it must be explicitly clear that you both have me equally. I like to share. It’s my favorite thing in the world. I want the Captain’s cock in my mouth and my cock in your pussy and I want to hear you both moan as you come for me.” His touch trails up and up, thumb brushing over my peaked nipple. “I have no time for jealousy. And certainly not pity .”
He steps back, and the sudden absence of his body, and his touch, makes me pitch forward, my eyes popping open.
He’s leaning against the wall again, smiling at me with a flash of his sharp incisors. “Okay?”
I swallow again, my body aching for him, my breath short. “Okay.”
“Good.”
A mewling sounds from the floor.
It’s the kitten Roc seems to have acquired.
“Firecracker,” he says and scoops the cat into his arms. “I wondered where you ran off to.” He scratches the cat beneath the chin and the cat’s eyes slip closed, nuzzling into his touch. “Come, my Darling girl. I’m told we’re about to set sail and dinner will be served in an hour and ten. Which is just as well. I’m famished. And if I’m to pound that pussy later, I’ll need all the strength I can get.”
Firecracker in hand, he turns toward the upper decks, cooing to the cat as he goes.
We’ve been at sea now just an hour and a half, and we’re all in the starboard side dining room. It’s hard to imagine that in just a few days, I’ve shed my crown, found myself with James and Roc, and on Neverland again, meeting my Darling descendant.
I watch Winnie across the dining table. She’s sitting between Vane and Asha, but her chair is inches closer to Vane. So close I imagine their knees are touching below the table. I’ve tried not to stare at them, but it’s hard not to be curious and maybe a little envious. There is an ease between them that is unfamiliar to me. When I was on Neverland, everything about Vane was coarse and sharp. He was more likely to scowl at me than offer a kind word so I kept my distance.
When I heard his brother was arriving at the treehouse, I thought surely he must be cut from the same cloth. I was determined to hate Roc immediately. I was determined to make myself small and invisible because two scowling, cleaving men with unknown power was more than I could bear.
But then Roc walked in the door and the energy changed. He was tall, black-haired, and handsome, but somehow his presence felt like warm sunlight on chilled skin.
He was jovial, funny, always up for a good time. I was drawn to him.
Looking back, I can see I was desperate not to feel so afraid on Neverland. I had been taken from my home, told I held the key to finding Pan’s shadow, of which I had no knowledge about. I couldn’t fix Pan’s plight and if I couldn’t fix it, then I was useless and if I was useless…what would he do with me?
With Roc, I felt protected. Safe. Maybe it was naive but I did.
And while we’re rebuilding on a shaky foundation, I still feel safe with him.
I just never expected to fight for his attention with James. Roc’s earlier comment about sharing, about detesting jealousy has me examining it from all directions. I am jealous. I’m jealous of everyone’s love. For the last however many decades, I’ve been alone, fighting for my place, trying not to get banished, killed, or imprisoned again.
I distrust everyone. Or at least I did, until Asha.
But the number of people in my life has tripled in a matter of days. I don’t know how to let any of them in without exposing myself to more heartache.
I want what Vane and Winnie have.
But I want it with James and Roc and I don’t want to be afraid of feeling less than between them.
How the hell do I do that?
Winnie looks up as if she can sense my internal distress. She frowns over at me. There’s a gilded candelabra between us that holds three ivory candles. The flames flicker, the wax dripping down the sticks.
“Are you okay?” Her mouth moves, but the words are buried beneath the din of conversation between Vane, Roc, and Asha.
I give her a nod, even though it’s half-hearted.
Beside me, James lurches in his chair and he cuts his gaze across the table to Winnie. She’s staring back at him, eyes wide.
James turns to me. “You aren’t eating.”
I think she must have kicked him beneath the table.
I should be the one looking out for her, not the other way around.
I pick up my fork. “I am.”
Maggie and her crew have prepared roasted chicken, potatoes, and broccoli. I break a potato in half and take a bit. “See?”
James leans into me, his hand on my thigh and my heart races to my throat. “I know this is strange. I know you’ve barely had time to process all of this. There will come a day when we are no longer putting out fires.”
I smile up at him. There is earnestness in his expression. James was always a gentle breeze. The kind you lean into with a sigh.
“I’m looking forward to the day.”
“Wendy,” Roc says, and James and I pull apart.
“Hmm?”
“Your girl is trying to pry into my past with a knife. Is she always this forward?”
Asha is situated between Vane and Roc across the table from me. I meet her gaze. She’s not uncomfortable being put on the spot. Asha has always liked a challenge.
“Yes,” I answer.
“Well I don’t like it,” Roc answers, but he’s smiling like maybe he does.
“I spent years in the Darkland Archives,” Asha says, taking up her glass of wine. “You must know your origins are heavily censored, which makes you confounding and astonishingly interesting all at the same time.”
“Do you hear that, brother?” Roc glances down the table at Vane. “We are astonishingly interesting.”
“That’s an understatement,” Winnie answers.
“Do you know what they are?” I blurt.
The table goes quiet.
James squeezes my thigh beneath the tablecloth, almost a warning.
I turn away from them, suddenly embarrassed. “Sorry,” I mutter. “I didn’t mean to pry…”
“I don’t know,” Winnie answers. “Not entirely.”
Roc and Vane share a look. Vane gives his older brother an almost imperceptible shake of his head.
Whatever they are, it leads me to believe it’s rooted in some actual mythology, something we would recognize if we heard it. Asha’s theory is Roc and Vane, or at least their ancestors, are not from the Seven Isles. I’ve spent enough time with her in the private palace library listening to her read myths and sagas, to know that the Seven Isles and my home world are just two of many. So it stands to reason that someone further back in Roc and Vane’s line, or maybe even Roc and Vane themselves, crossed worlds just like Peter Pan did to mine. Time and clocks didn’t exist before the Bone Society, which means here, in the Isles, no one had a need for it until they did.
“What else did you learn in the Archives?” Roc asks Asha.
She sips from her wine glass while she contemplates the question. Asha has never been a person in a rush to speak. Sometimes there are long pauses between her answers while she digs through the archive of her mind looking for the best response.
“Vane’s name is his birth name, but you weren’t born a crocodile,” she finally says.
“No.” Roc smiles. “No, I was not.”
“But your birth name doesn’t appear at all. Not once.”
Their gazes catch on one another like sand burrs on cloth.
“Are you asking me a question?” Roc says.
“What’s your true name?”
“The only person alive who knows my true name is my brother and my uncle.”
“Wait,” Winnie says, turning to Vane. “You have an uncle?”
The line of Vane’s lower jaw tenses as he scowls at Roc, clearly thinking he’s said too much.
I didn’t know they had an uncle. I thought most of their family was dead.
Roc rests his elbows on the table and leans toward Asha. Asha, for her part, does not move despite the tension in the air. “I assure you, Bonescar, my name is not as interesting as my monster. Perhaps next time I shift, I’ll?—”
I stand up so fast that my chair tips over and slams into the hardwood floor. Everyone turns to me.
“Don’t, Roc. Don’t ever threaten her.”
He takes in a long breath through his nose, his chest expanding slowly and deliberately. “Fine. I’ll pinkie promise. But not until she promises to leave my past in the past.”
I’m not sure Asha can turn off her inquiring mind any more than Roc can turn off his monster, but Asha says, “I promise,” anyway, because she’s smart, and she knows when a lie is more important than the truth.
Roc holds out his pinkie to her.
Asha sits upright. “Is that necessary?”
“Of course. It’s the most sacred promise of all.”
With a disgruntled sigh, Asha hooks her pinkie finger around his and Roc gives their hands one hearty pump.
“There. It’s settled.”
“Thank you,” I tell them both, but the look Asha gives me says she will not honor that pinkie promise, no matter how sacred Roc seems to think it is. Because he made a mistake: he revealed the fact that he possesses a secret, one he was willing to fight over.
Asha will never let it go.